Sharing
by Ember Quill
Summary: "My semblance isn't just fire. It's passion. Passion that burns everything that gets in its way." - Blake and Yang bond over semblances.


**_Author's Note:_** _I decided to turn my RWBY oneshot into a series of oneshots. So here's the second part of the series that I'm going to call **Bonds**. Check out my profile if you want to read the first part._

_Edited on 7/1/2014 to fix some derpiness caused by 's doc conversion. You saw nothing._

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**_Sharing_**

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"I don't know what my sister sees in her," Yang grumbled under her breath.

Blake looked up from her novel and frowned. She had been stuck on the same page for ten minutes because the boisterous blonde refused to shut up or go away.

"Jealous?" Blake deadpanned as she went back to her book. In the corner of her eye, she saw Yang turn to stare at her.

"_Jealous?!_" Yang sputtered. "What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?!"

A hint of a smile tugged at Blake's lips, but she chose not to answer as she finally managed to reach the end of a page and turned it to start on the next one.

The two of them were seated at a long table in Beacon's library. A pile of unopened history textbooks sat next to Yang. She had forgotten to complete an essay that was due the next morning, but couldn't continue writing without doing further research. Blake had offered to accompany her to the library after their classes, as she had wanted to look for another novel to read, anyway.

Unfortunately, after Blake had found a book that intrigued her, Yang had decided that finishing her essay was less important than whining incessantly about something else entirely. Though there was an open book lying on the table in front of her, Yang's eyes hadn't strayed in its direction for quite some time.

Why she had the misfortune of being partnered with the loudest, most annoying person she'd ever met, Blake had no idea.

Not to mention the fact that Yang was a _Human_, too.

"I'm not jealous," Yang eventually answered, interrupting Blake's thoughts just as they had begun to take a darker turn. "I'm just...worried."

Blake debated with herself for a moment before deciding to lower her book once more.

"Why?" she asked.

Yang leaned back, glancing at the textbook in front of her without seeing it. She sighed.

"Ruby doesn't make friends easily," she said quietly. "Even when we were both at Signal Academy together, she spent more time with me and Uncle Qrow than she did with her own classmates. I thought that coming to Beacon with me would be a great chance for her to meet new people..."

"And...?" Blake prodded as she marked her place in the novel before closing it to devote her full attention to her partner. She was too curious now to let this go. "It sounds like she's doing exactly what you wanted her to do."

"Yeah, but still...did she really have to end up with that selfish, stuck-up little Ice Princess?" Yang growled.

"And now we get to the heart of it. You don't like her."

"You're damn right I don't like her!" Yang affirmed loudly, earning a few angry glares from other occupants of the library. She ignored them entirely as she continued, "I don't like her. I don't _trust_ her. Especially not around my sister. Ruby may be a prodigy when it comes to fighting the Grimm, but she has _no_ idea how to deal with other people. Weiss isn't exactly setting a good example for her. She's so mean to my little sis that sometimes I just want to punch her smug little _face_ in."

Yang let her head hang, supporting her chin with both hands as she sighed yet again.

"But Ruby likes her, for some stupid reason."

"Maybe she sees something in Weiss that you can't?" Blake suggested, playing Devil's Advocate even though she privately agreed with Yang's assessment of the heiress.

"Maybe she sees something that isn't even _there_," Yang retorted, clenching her fists under the table. Blake noticed crimson bleeding into her partner's eyes as the air around her began to heat up.

"Careful, your eyes are going red," she warned.

Yang blinked, her eyes rapidly fading back to their usual lilac hue as the the air began to cool. She blushed, embarrased.

"Sorry," she said. "Lost my temper."

"I didn't know you even _had_ one," Blake teased.

Yang's jaw dropped.

"You made a _joke_!" she exclaimed, earning more annoyed glances from her fellow students. "Awww, my little Blakey's growing up so _fast_..."

Now it was Blake's turn to be embarrassed. "You're incorrigible."

"I don't even know the meaning of the word," Yang replied with a cocky grin. Blake wondered for a moment if she was just kidding or if she really didn't know what it meant.

"Why _are_ you so easily angered, anyway?" Blake heard her mouth ask without her mind's consent. "And why do you lose control of your semblance when you get so angry?"

Yang was silent for a long moment, long enough for Blake to wonder whether she should have asked at all. It was a deeply personal question, after all, especially since the two of them had only known each other for a few days, now. She opened her mouth to take it back, to say Yang didn't have to answer, but Yang beat her to the punch.

"My semblance isn't ever really under control," she admitted quietly. "Even after years of practice, I can't summon more than a trickle of flame when I'm not angry or upset. And when I _am_ upset, I can't stop the fire from leaking out. And I think that's the point."

Blake raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Fire isn't something that's meant to be controlled," Yang mused. "You can direct it, sure, but it's almost impossible to stop it on your own once it really starts burning. Anger—or any strong emotion, really—is the same. You can aim it, but you can't pull it back once you let it go. And when you _do_ let it go, it burns up everything in its path until it dies out. Sometimes anger feels exactly like a flame that burns inside you. For me, it's just a bit more literal. When I let out my anger, it turns into fire."

Blake silently reevaluated her opinion of her partner. She hadn't assumed the blonde was particularly intelligent or prone to introspection. Now she realized she should have known better. Yang wouldn't have been able to get into Beacon _at all_ if she didn't have at least the minimum amount of intelligence needed to back up her strength in combat.

"It's pretty simple, when you think about it," Yang went on, unaware of how well she was holding her partner's interest. "My semblance isn't just fire. It's passion. Passion that burns everything that gets in its way."

"How poetic," Blake remarked dryly, though she was secretly intrigued by Yang's explanation.

"What about you?" Yang asked, startling her from her thoughts. "I don't think I've seen you use your semblance yet. So what is it?"

Blake frowned for a moment. Her first instinct was to come up with a believable lie. As a Faunus, not to mention a former member of the White Fang, she was not exactly the most trusting person. Though Yang hadn't given any obvious sign of being untrustworthy, there was still the simple fact that she was Human and Blake was not. Blake had never met a single Human who treated her like an equal before she had begun disguising her telltale feline ears with a black bow.

On the other hand, her semblance had nothing at all to do with her Faunus heritage. And they were partnered for the next four years. Yang would inevitably find out at some point, so why not just tell her right now?

"If you don't want to—" Yang started to say Blake interrupted her.

"It's fine," the disguised Faunus said. "I guess I don't mind sharing with you."

Yang leaned forward eagerly, excited to learn something new about her quiet and aloof partner.

"My semblance gives me the ability to create...I guess you would call them shadow clones," Blake explained hesitantly.

"Shadow clones?" Yang repeated. "Nice. Very...ninja-esque."

Blake rolled her eyes. "More or less. Essentially, I can create short-lived copies of myself. They're like illusions, but with substance. I can use them as decoys or as springboards to quickly move or change directions even in midair. I used a few clones while we were fighting the Nevermore."

"Now that you mention it, I think I remember seeing that," Yang realized. "It looked more like some kind of super speed, though. Like Ruby's."

"It just looks that way because the clones are summoned and destroyed so quickly. They're like afterimages, there for a brief moment and then gone."

"Hmm..." Yang was silent for a while. Blake raised her eyebrows in confusion. Had she said something wrong?

"Neat, I like it." Yang grinned at her. "We'll make a good team, won't we? The ninja and the brawler. A perfect match."

Blake merely smiled and picked up her book again. Perhaps being partnered with Yang wasn't as disastrous as she had assumed. Maybe she would be able to befriend this strange and temperamental Human.

"Oh crap! What time is it? I gotta finish my essay!"


End file.
